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The most important geopolitical economy treatise of the 20th century?

Preamble
--The 1st edition, published in 1972 (immediately after the 1971 Nixon Shock) is the classic study on dollar imperialism, predicting the incoming US debtor empire. The 2nd edition is a 2003 re-issue prompted by the 2003 War on Iraq. With growing interest in de-dollarization (ex. China, multipolarity), a 3rd edition is expected for 2021.
--The labyrinthian contents of Finance (“The devil wins at the point where the public comes to believe that he doesn’t exist��) demands the most talented writing/editing to make accessible to the public; sadly, every Hudson book (the most comprehensive of Hudson’s range being The Bubble and Beyond) reads like a compilation of articles, resulting in grueling repetition and public obscurity.
…Other formats to try first:
-interview:
-lecture:
--This books focuses on the better-hidden economic terrorism of imperialism rather than the politics of military terrorism (although military spending plays a crucial role). Why use tanks when you can use banks? Of course, we need to pair this with the politics of democracy-bombs:
-Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations
-The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump
-The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
-Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II

Highlights:
1) WWI to WWII: US as absentee creditor:
--“Absentee creditor�� is not termed by Hudson, but I think it summarizes US’s pivotal role in setting the conditions for WWII. US entered WWI as an associate (worried about Allies not paying war debts) rather than a full ally, diverting from the historical pattern of allies subsiding war costs for loyalty (ex. Louis XVI subsidizing US’s war of independence).
--FDR followed in the nationalist/isolationist tradition that saw US industrialists reject British free trade imperialism to (1) pursue protectionist industrialization and (2) develop domestic market self-reliance (intro: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, details: America's Protectionist Takeoff 1815-1914). (We should add US benefits from settler colonialism).
…This differed from European imperialist rivalries seeking foreign markets to reduce wages + domestic class oppression with insufficient home market demand, culminating in WWI. (This part at least falls in line with both Lenin's famous 1916 Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism and W.E.B. Du Bois' 1915 essay on how imperialist “Scramble for Africa�� led to WWI).
--The results: after the ravages of WWI, US was left as the world’s creditor but did not want to take over Britain’s former world workshop + banker roles and embed the US into world finance/trade.
…FDR focused on national government planning and neglected foreign relations, providing pro-debtor domestic policies (New Deal era) while insisting on the most vulgar pro-creditor position abroad: after providing credit for the destruction of mainland Europe, US insisted on full repayment of inter-Ally war debts rather than subsidizing unpayable debts while keeping (indeed raising) US tariffs! So, the Allies had war-torn production and were further prevented from exporting to US to pay off debts!
…It’s easy for us to laugh at British elites clinging onto their colonial creditor “sanctity of debt�� private property ideology (instead of debtor’s ability to pay) despite their now-reversed position with US and also being told scornfully to sell off their colonial assets. However, we should consider different layers of analysis (i.e. geopolitical) to avoid adventurism. US pressure was top-down (elitist, instead of empowering colonies; British elites would push costs to lower classes) and myopic (unpayable debts and the resulting WWII was a disaster esp. for the masses).
--US also took no responsibility for how unpayable inter-Ally war debts resulted in unpayable German reparations! US private creditors would loan to Germany to pay for reparations to the Allies who would then pay inter-Ally war debts to the US government. US private credit dried up as it was diverted to US domestic stock bubble which burst in 1929 Crash/subsequent Great Depression.
--FDR’s nationalist de-linking of dollar from gold to devalue dollar (help US exports during Depression) led to a trade war downward spiral (competitive devaluations + tariff wars) which internalized the Depression in nations, leading to WWII. As someone who thought highly of FDR’s domestic policies (relative to US presidents!), it is startling to learn pro-austerity predecessor Herbert Hoover and his class of private creditors actually wanted foreign debt relief for the selfish reason that both private creditors and the US government could not both be repaid. It also seems FDR’s scorn for international private bankers at the time was built on crude geopolitical economy.

2) post-WWII: US as surplus empire:
--US government emerged from WWII ready to shed its absentee role and embed itself in a world system dictated by itself (Bretton Woods/IMF/World Bank), to create a surplus empire. Compared to the crude nationalism of WWI/WWII, this recognition of world finance to benefit US exporters (maintain full employment to quell the Left by recycling US surplus goods abroad) and US investors (buy up foreign assets) has a certain amount of “enlightenment��.
--Bretton Woods was premised on the US creditor/surplus position tied to gold (which the US needed to revive the value of after accumulating a dominant share), thus long-term asymmetrical failings. Same goes for IMF/World Bank (US veto power).
--It is curious reading Keynes (a deity in political economy) represent the British empire in negotiations with US and get crushed. Hudson focuses on Britain’s Sterling area being the main immediate threat to the US (instead of Soviet Russia), and how the US superseded this to prevent Britain reviving its export industries within this area to pay for its war debts to India/Egypt/Argentina etc. For a critical Global South perspective on Keynes (as well as fall of British empire setting up Great Depression):
-fascinating comparison: Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
-The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry

3) 1971 Nixon Shock: US as debtor empire:
--The post-WWII asymmetrical (i.e. US remain surplus) free trade paradigm quickly eroded with the Cold War attempt to isolate communism. Cold War military genocides in Korea and Vietnam required such high military spending abroad that US balance-of-payments shifted from surplus to deficit. Bretton Woods dollar-gold convertibility became a burden by the mid-1960s as countries (ex. France) exchanged their dollar earnings for US’s gold. US dismantled Bretton Woods and delinked this convertibility (official in 1971 Nixon Shock), pivoting to become the (first) debtor empire.
--To avoid the typical debtor balance-of-payments adjustments (raise interest rates + austerity), US government needed to entrench the dollar into the world monetary system by strong-arming the world against alternative regional currencies. US used the fear of global monetary collapse, playing this sabotage tactic (think Nixon’s “Madman theory�� vs. Communist bloc) as trade played a relatively bigger role for other countries. Divide-and-conquer was of course also used, with Britain preventing a united Europe.
--The mechanism: US dollars floods into foreign central banks (i.e. surplus exporters in West Europe/East Asia), who are forced to recycle it back to US government in exchange for US Treasury IOUs. Surplus dollars are a competitive devaluation burden to foreign exporters; there is not much else foreign central banks can do since they are prevented from exchanging for US gold or buyout key US industries, while speculating on US stock market/real estate is risky for central banks. John Connally Jr., Richard Nixon's Treasury secretary, proclaimed in 1971 to G10: the dollar is “our currency, but your problem��.
…Thus, the biggest “free lunch�� imperialism in history: US dollars and low-interest US Treasuries conjured by the US government pays for military encirclement of the world (to prevent attempts to get off dollar; rising federal budget deficit) and foreign productive goods (rising trade deficit)/industry buyouts.
--Asymmetrical trade is more accessibly explained in Varoufakis�� And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future

4) World Bank/IMF: starve the Global South:
--In a book with “imperialism�� in its title, we finally get to the Global South at the half-way point. Hudson contends that WWII provided isolation for colonies to pursue agricultural and industrial self-sufficiency (I wish he elaborated on this; time to consult the Patnaiks again), and this was reversed by the 1960s from US switching from European reconstruction to Global South “d�𱹱���DZ賾��Գ��� to create the minerals-for-food flow (US unconstrained industry/military demand for minerals + US unconstrained agricultural surplus exports).
--US industrial agriculture is buttressed by massive protectionism, so asymmetrical “free trade�� with Global South wipes away rural agriculture. Global South needs social transformation (esp. land reform + tax reform) to dismantle colonial institutions and build self-sufficiency (social services + infrastructure to build production upon), whereas US liberal technocratic “d�𱹱���DZ賾��Գ��� purposefully prevents this to protect bribed South oligarchs and foreign investments.
--Rural agriculture wiped out + sudden urbanization + raw materials exports (priced in devaluing dollars, which accelerated from 1973 grain/oil shocks + 1979 Carter/Volcker shocks) caused food shortages/dependency + price/cost of living inflation + loss of gold reserves + debt trap.
--Global South’s collective efforts against this (esp. New International Economic Order, NIEO) were stifled (for details, see Vijay Prashad’s The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South). Hudson connects US aid liberalism (in particular Malthusian population control, see Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis) with mercantilism’s framing of population as a military input:
“It thus was historically logical that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara should become president of the World Bank upon leaving his position as architect of America’s war in Southeast Asia.��
…I’ve noted elsewhere Hudson’s discombobulating flip between praising domestic liberal reforms (Classical political economy freeing the market from economic rent) vs. condemning liberal imperialism (free trade).
--For a more accessible overview of liberal imperialism, see The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.

5) Theories of Imperialism:
--Hudson’s key thesis is to distinguish:
a) Colonialism: government intervention follows private investments (esp. raw materials), as established by Hobson/Lenin/Luxemburg etc.
b) “Monetary imperialism��: US government interventions (WWI inter-governmental debt, pressuring foreign central banks to recycle dollar, IMF/WB) as the driver, more than private investments.
…This is a messy topic as private capital vs. state intervention are so intertwined and fluctuate due to circumstance.
--Other messes: Hudson frequently contrasts productive industrialization vs. parasitism (his usual focus is on economic rent-seeking; in this book, it is military/bureaucratic superstructure). I’d be curious to see Hudson incorporate what often precedes capitalist productive industrialization: dispossession of the Commons (“Enclosures��, Marxist critique of “primitive accumulation��) to first construct labor/land/commodity markets. See Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
--“Super�� imperialism refers to US’s sole debtor empire position, a system more flexible than European colonialism:
a) Western Europe/East Asian surplus competitors: pro-debtor subsidize US demand + military encirclement
b) Middle East oil surplus: same
c) Global South debtors: pro-creditor austerity + free trade exports while US agriculture is protected
--More synthesis of Hudson’s Global North Finance Capitalism perspectives is needed with Global South perspectives (see earlier). It is curious to see how Hudson shares many geopolitical conclusions with Prashad:
--What to make of the gold standard?
a) Keynes: gold is a “barbarous relic�� where limited quantity constrains domestic credit creation, thus deflationary on market/employment leading to foreclosures to creditors.
b) Hudson: domestic currencies can be freed of gold’s constraints (ex. Modern Monetary Theory). International currency is used to finance imbalances in international payments, not domestic production. Extreme balance-of-payments deficits have historically been from financing wars, thus gold can be a useful constraint.